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R e v i e w s
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This Rock
Volume 14, Number 1
 January 2003 
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The Knot of Eve’s Disobedience Untied
In Mary, The Mother of God, the second video in Ignatius Press’s Footprints of God series, host Stephen Ray sheds light not only on the mother of Christ but also on the various Marian doctrines taught by the Church. Ray is an energetic host—part CCD instructor, part Indiana Jones. Mary introduces new scenery and a few surprises, such as Ray’s encounter with a mud puddle.
"How did a humble Jewish girl come to be the queen of heaven?" asks Ray. The video seeks to answer that question. It begins in Jerusalem at the grotto at the Church of St. Anne, where Mary was born. Here Ray addresses the Catholic concept of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, being born without sin.
In the video’s most unexpected and humorous moment, Ray falls face-first into mud. The film then rewinds, he is cleaned up and prevented from falling into the puddle as a way of explaining how God can either use baptism to cleanse us from original sin or prevent us from the stain of original sin to begin with.
From Jerusalem Ray travels north to Nazareth, where Mary said yes to God, and then south to Ein Kerem in Judea where Mary spent three months visiting Elizabeth. Ray uses this opportunity to explain the rosary and how Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant, is foreshadowed by the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament.
In the video’s most powerful section, Ray reflects on how Mary is prefigured. He draws several fascinating parallels between David, the keeper of the Old Testament Ark, and Mary. Both, Scripture tells us, went to Judea and remained there for three months. Ray recalls that when the Ark comes before David, he leaps and dances, just as John the Baptist does in Elizabeth’s womb when Mary comes to visit. Ray also parallels how the Ark of the Covenant contained the law of God, the rod of Aaron the priest, and an urn of manna. Similarly, says Ray, Mary’s womb contained the Law of God in flesh, Jesus Christ the true priest, and the Bread of Life.
From there Ray takes us to Bethlehem, Cana, and the Holy Sepulchre so that we might walk in Mary’s footsteps at Christ’s birth, his first miracle, and his death. At Golgotha, Ray explains how Mary shared in the sufferings of Christ and participated in the redemption. "The knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied with Mary’s obedience," says Ray. "Eve, at the tree of life brings death, whereas Mary, at the foot of the cross—a tree of death—brings life."
Ray also takes us to the Upper Room and on to Ephesus to the house of Mary. Ephesus, Ray points out, is important not only because it is where John brought Mary but also because it is where the Third Council of Ephesus took place in 431, settling a major dispute regarding the nature of Christ. It was at this council where Mary was declared as Theotokos, or the Mother of God. Finally, we are brought back to Jerusalem and Mount Zion, where some believe that Mary fell asleep in God.
The video ends on the Greek island of Patmos, which Ray uses to explain Mary’s heavenly role. He describes how John saw his revelation: an ark in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun. Ray uses Solomon to illuminate the scriptural basis for the idea of a queen mother. All the kings of Judah had queens, he explains, but they were not their wives. Rather, they were their mothers. The kings would establish a throne for their queen mothers who would then sit at their right hand and rule with them. Ray applies this concept to Christ the King ruling in his heavenly kingdom with Mary at his right hand. This biblical model also effectively explains the Catholic concept of Mary as an intercessor, making her people’s needs known to the king.
Featuring an imprimatur from Rev. Carl F. Mengeling of Lansing, Michigan, and accompanied by a study guide, Mary, The Mother of God would be useful for adult or teen catechesis. It is educational, engaging, and a good deal of fun.
-- Tim Drake
Mary, the Mother of God
Hosted by Stephen Ray
Ignatius Press
70 minutes
$24.95
Conversion in the New Millennium
One way this fascinating book works is to present the encouraging stories of adults—including, among others, Anglican bishops, a woman Salvation Army officer, and a New Age intellectual—who have embraced the fullness of the Roman Catholic faith. But what Longenecker achieves in The Path to Rome is something a bit different. In his thoughtful selection and organization of fifteen powerful conversion stories, he goes a step beyond the typical conversion genre into scholarly yet accessible commentary on the larger question of conversion in the new millennium.
In the opening section, "Basic Considerations," the authors explore the basic questions of authority, authenticity, and continuity that confront non-Catholic Christians. The second, "The Context of Conversion," looks at conversion from both historical and global perspectives. "Personal Journeys," the third section, presents wonderfully diverse personal accounts. Ann Widdicombe’s meaty foreword and a provocative editor’s introduction complete the volume.
Longenecker, who grew up in an American Evangelical home and attended Fundamentalist Bob Jones University, went to England to study theology at Oxford in 1979 and was later ordained an Anglican minister. He and his wife were received into the Catholic Church in 1995 (his story appears as one of the essays in this book). In addition to writing and broadcasting, he now works as a district organizer for the St. Barnabas Society, the British counterpart of Marcus Grodi’s Coming Home Network International. The St. Barnabas Society was established to offer pastoral and material help to converts whose livelihood is put at risk by their decision to enter the Church, and most of the contributors to The Path to Rome have connections to the society, either as employees or beneficiaries.
The stories mention the expected influences: Cardinal Newman, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, Mother Teresa, the lives of the martyrs, the sense of the holy that seekers feel when first entering a Catholic church, the realization that the Catholic Church is responsible for the Bible. Other influences are refreshingly new. One convert recalls an encounter in Russia with an Orthodox deacon. The key to another’s conversion was the decision by the Anglican Church to ordain women. Another was moved by a biography of Francis of Assisi by Danish convert Johannes Joergensen. Another’s turning point was noticing the stations of the cross for the first time. Several of the contributors mention feeling after their conversion a sense of completeness described by one as "difficult to believe that I was ever not a Catholic" (p. 97).
Reading The Path to Rome will enhance your understanding of the perplexing phenomenon of Anglo-Catholicism, which is explained at length by Anthony Symondson, S.J., in his essay and touched upon by several others. Added illumination is found in Cyprian Blamires’s insightful analysis of the "energy and dynamic" (p. 76) of the Evangelical movement that swept the world in the 1960s and continues today. Longenecker connects the two when, in discussing the roots of postmodern relativism, he writes, "Both the Anglo-Catholic and Anglican Evangelical have relativism at the very foundation of their theological method. [They] live together not because they agree but because they do not differ at all. They both agree that their language is ‘simply a way of speaking about the mystery which is beyond words’" (p. 39).
The essays affirm Longenecker’s description of his own conversion as "a fulfillment of all the goodness, grace, and love" received from his Evangelical and Anglican background (p. xi). His strong conviction that the Roman Catholic Church is the true home for all Christians underlies a hope for the future convergence of Catholicism, Evangelicalism, and Orthodoxy into Christ’s one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. He writes in the book’s introduction, "It is hoped that this collection may play a part in helping Catholics understand why others want to join the Catholic Church, and help Evangelicals and other Protestants understand the call of the Catholic Church to unity." And again, "At the grassroots level the Spirit may be doing a new and even greater creative work—bringing a new church out of the chaos of division. If a new Pentecost is germinating, it will produce a church unfettered by the old denominational, national, doctrinal, and historical prejudices. The budding of this new Church may be part of the ‘Second Spring’ which Newman prophesied; a Second Spring in which the old differences of the second millennium are buried once and for all, and a newly unified Church emerges ready for the challenge of the third millennium" (p. 11).
My only criticism of the book is its lack of an index. The Path to Rome is likely to become a frequently used reference for many readers, and an excellent index would expedite locating the particular topics desired. As you read, you may wish to pencil your own list of references and page numbers.
-- Ann Applegarth
The Path to Rome: Modern Journeys to the Catholic Church
Edited by Dwight Longenecker
Gracewing
240 pages pages
$22.00
ISBN: 0-524-444-869
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